tapStory

October 21, 2016

The app opens with a few easy set-ups. One of the most important is setting up a parent passcode to keep little fingers from accessing purchases or external links. Once the passcode is established, kids are free to tap and explore or parents can sit down with their kiddos and learn how to create together. The homescreen gives access to both of the free stories, "Pea and Carrot" and "Ten Birds" as well as seven stories available for purchase that range in price from $2.99 to $7.99. Users can also get straight to creating their own stories using characters and backgrounds from the stories that are included or purchased. The homescreen also has what they call an "apron" which is a menu that appears along the top and side of the screen after tapping the tapStory finger. This area includes the about section as well as settings. Settings give adults options to turn off or on the auto record feature, video tagging and visual prompts for learning how to navigate. Turning these features off does not make them disappear but keeps them from starting without asking first. Children will still be able to approve them when creating. The about section gives a link to the developer website, a place to leave feedback and a link to leave a review in the app store.

Once all of the set-up nitty-gritty has taken place kids get can straight to story making. A good place to start is with the included stories. Once a story has been selected, users can click on the upper left icon to open the menu apron to edit the story and make voice recordings as they see fit. Users can flip, rotate, move, enlarge, reduce and have an all around festive time tinkering with story objects and characters. Although new text cannot be added to existing stories, users can have fun narrating as they see fit. The app is easy to learn how to use and navigation as well as customization is intuitive. Once a story is complete. Children have the chance to save their creations with a simple text description or a video explanation.

Having a section to create a story from scratch is a great way to promote literacy and creativity. Users are allowed to create a story with their own text using illustrations from the included stories and purchased stories. After finishing, kids can edit as many times as they please, but they may only have one story saved to be read unless parents purchase the unlimited story creation option for $4.99.

This app worked well with no apparent bugs. The layout is clean, easy to understand and navigate and illustrations are beautiful. Although I would like to see the ability to change text within stories or to draw or add personal illustrations, the app stands well as-is and works even better with opting to purchase some of the options available such as unlimited story creation or additional pre-written stories. Overall, a good find for staying creative and literate over the summer.

Recommended

This app has been thoroughly evaluated by our staff. Please click on the 'star ratings' tab above, to see how it fared in all nine of our rating categories. See synopsis tab for more details about the storyline.

The author of this review, Cynthia, is hard at work hiding from her children who have forgotten how to do almost everything on their own since it's summer. Send help. SmartAppsForKids.com was paid a priority review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.

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Story Synopsis - tapStory

From iTunes:

tapStory enhances picture books with creative play. Kids animate characters and read the story out loud, and then play back their performances. They can also create their own stories based on existing characters and scenery! Characters can be moved, rotated, resized and flipped using simple gestures. Audio is recorded automatically as the reader narrates. All artwork from purchased stories is available for use in custom stories, and custom stories can be animated and played back just like existing ones.

Features:

- Move, resize, rotate and flip characters and objects in the scene

- Record your voice and your actions and play them back as an animation with audio

- Play back just one scene or the entire story automatically

- Describe your recordings with text or a short video clip to save them for later

- Browse all story recordings from the Home screen and play them back at any time

- Create your own stories using art from all the stories you've purchased and then adding your own text

- Buy new stories to read and animate, and then use their illustrations in your own stories

- Buy new art packs to expand your library of items to use in your own stories

- Use an interactive tutorial to learn about the features of the app

tapStory comes with two free stories.

- Pea and Carrot: Meet Pea, who knows all about Carrot, but Carrot doesn't seem to know she exists. How can she get him to notice her? All of her vegetable friends want to help.